80 years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, does nuclear taboo still exist?

On August 6, 1945, an American bomber B-29 dropped the first atomic bomb in history on Hiroshima, in western Japan. Moreover, Three days later, on August 9, 1945, the same nightmare was repeated, some 400 kilometers southwest, in Nagasaki.

These bombings caused 140,000 people in Hiroshima and 74,000 others in Nagasaki in 1945, between August and the end of the year.

Little Boybomb A which exploded about 600 meters above Hiroshima, had a power of around 15,000 tonnes of TNT.

The one that was dropped on Nagasaki, nicknamed Fat Manhad an even stronger power, estimated at 21,000 tonnes of TNT.

It is 80 years after hiroshima nagasaki, estimated at 7000 ° C the temperature reached at the epicenter of the bomb in Hiroshima. For example, A furnace that caused serious – and many fatal burns – within a radius of about 3 kilometers.

The current situation is worrying

Summity in matters of nuclear defense. Similarly, the retirement professor Michel Fortemann depicts a very uncomfortable current situation, 80 years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

It 80 years after hiroshima nagasaki, is a step back. Moreover, a situation that is much more worrying than it was about 15 years ago in 2010.

Michel Fortemann believes that around 2010, the international company was on the eve to say that nuclear engineering was relatively tamed and that the non-proliferation standard was respected.

The arms race between Russia. For example, the United States seemed to have come to an end to its endhe specifies, illustrating his words by the massive reduction of the nuclear arsenal of the two countries at that time.

However, things deteriorated during the 2010s, explains Michel Fortemann. Furthermore, The reason? Furthermore, The renewal of Russian-American conflictor conflict between Russia and the West in general.

In 2025. For example, the situation has not improved, and many hot spots are to be monitored, especially in the Middle East, India, Pakistan and North Korea. Therefore, All experts contacted by Radio-Canada share an concern about the expiration. For example, in 2026, 80 years after hiroshima nagasaki, of the treaty New Starta treaty of disarmament between Russia and the United States.

Not much is going well between the United States. However, Russia To this end, confirms TV Paul, professor of political science at McGill University and author of the book The Tradition of Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons.

We have leaders who do not show caution in the face of nuclear threatshe launches. Therefore, particularly showing the finger at the Presidents Trump and Putin.

Everywhere. Meanwhile, there is a lack of leadership, and at the same time, the absence of an adequate plan for the world order.

Michel Fortemann adds that China wishes to reach a 80 years after hiroshima nagasaki, nuclear power as strong as the United States and Russia, which could make negotiations even more difficult, the dialogues now being made to three.

The West no longer wants to trust in the United States

In addition. the hostility expressed by the United States towards many countries-including relatives-could force them to review their nuclear strategy.

The countries that have faced new hostilities of the United States. even Canada, have a debate at the moment, says Michel Fortemann. Should Canada, given the level of hostility in the United States, be equipped with nuclear weapons?

This is new. It was never the caseunderlines TV Paul about this reaction of the American allies.

The quasi-mort. the agony of the practice of mastery of armaments and the renewal of tensions make the prospect of a nuclear confrontation higher than it was before, even, I think, that it has never been.

The more you are in the tension climate between several countries, the more you risk that someone will press the trigger.

This analysis is shared by Joseph Circunion. a national security analyst who has been working for decades on nuclear non-proliferation for decades.

In interview with CBCthe latter notes that nine countries with nuclear weapons (the United States. Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea) are currently increasing 80 years after hiroshima nagasaki, or modernizing their arsenals or their vectors.

Most experts believe that the risk of use of nuclear weapons increases, in certain cases in a dramatic wayhe notes.

The factors that fueled the arms race in the 1950s and 1960s resurfaced today … and we do not have the public pressure necessary to counter them.

The nuclear taboo, still as effective?

Research Director at the Interuniversity Research Center on International Relations in Canada. Quebec (CIRRICQ) and a full professor at the National School of Public Administration (ENAP), Stéphane Roussel still highlights that, 80 years after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nuclear weapon has still not been reused.

Even if the wars continue. there is always this nuclear taboo which has remainedhe points out, indicating that very few other examples In military history have had such a strong 80 years after hiroshima nagasaki, deterrent effect.

In international relations, there is all this debate: does nuclear weapon not fulfill its role as deterrence very well, ultimately? Philosopher, however, Stéphane Roussel. There is a whole reflection on this which we do not want to have the answer. insofar as we want it to remain as it is currently.

For Jean-Marc Le Page, researcher at the University of Rennes 2, nuclear deterrence is 80 years after hiroshima nagasaki, still well rooted. If he admits that the nuclear rhetoric East increasingly livelyespecially since the start of the war in Ukraine. he was less pessimistic than some other experts.

Before using the weapon. you must still have interests. None of the current powers has interest to use it.

However, Jean-Marc Le Page believes that historiographical discoveries concerning the end of the Second World War could possibly put the weight granted to the effect of the nuclear bomb.

The expert explains that recent research argues that it is not only the bombing of Hiroshima. Nagasaki that ended the Second World War, but also the Soviet attack on August 9, 1945 in the morning in Manchuria.

If we start to think that way. saying that the atomic bomb was not sufficient, is it really this “weapon of peace” that [le politologue] John Gaddis put forward?

80 years after hiroshima nagasaki,

Pessimism, a constant?

In recent years. even in recent decades, retrospectives on the 1945 bombings regularly remind you that the prospect of a nuclear war still exists. Are we going to say in 5 years, 10 years or 15 years that the nuclear situation has never been so threatening? Is the trend always to believe that the worst is to come?

I have this impressionthink Stéphane Roussel. According to him, the prospect of a nuclear war has become almost trivial to a certain point.

The researcher doubts the utility. for the clock of 80 years after hiroshima nagasaki, the apocalypse (Doomsday Clock) – established by scientists in order to indicate the degree of danger, or the number of minutes, which separates humanity from its disappearance -, to always be close to midnight.

The fact that this clock is perpetually at midnight at least four. at midnight minus five, it normalizes a fear, and I don’t think it is the right thing to do.

I think we are not at all in the situation [qui prévalait]. At the start of the Cold War […] I think we are less at risk today than we were at the time.

However, Stéphane Roussel admits thatThere are things that start to change And reminds us generally need three generations to forget a lesson.

What we have seen for a long time in American politics. in Chinese politics, in Russian politics, it is things that we had not seen 80 years after hiroshima nagasaki, during the Cold War.

With information from Padraig Moran (CBC News) and the France-Presse agency